If you're in the market for a succinct way to sum up the state of affairs at Florida, Florida State and Miami, you might want to get out your notebook: All three have first or second-year head coaches, all three are in flux at quarterback and all three have lost at least two of their last three games. Or you can just look at the latest rankings, where Saturday's 0-3 run against LSU, Wake Forest and Virginia Tech, respectively, left the Gators, Seminoles and Hurricanes on the outside of both mainstream polls at the same time for the first time in nearly 30 years.

The last time that happened in the Associated Press poll was on Dec. 6, 1982, years before current head coaches Will Muschamp, Jimbo Fisher and Al Golden ever suited up as college players themselves — and about a decade before most of their current players were even born. Since then, the "Big Three" have been constants: At one point, Miami spent nine consecutive seasons in the AP poll from 1986 through 1994; Florida State went

LSU 41, Florida 11.
You could hear the collective groan around college football when Florida confirmed it would be sending a freshman quarterback into his first career start in Baton Rouge, and the actual result might have been uglier than we imagined. Facing a dominant, A-plus defense for the second week in a row, the Gators once again managed one field goal, one long, abrupt touchdown strike — this time on a 65-yard bomb from freshman Jacoby Brissett to Andre Debose at the end of the third quarter, with LSU already up 27-3 — and literally nothing else: Their other eight offensive possessions resulted in five three-and-outs, two interceptions and a turnover on downs. The only good news for Florida, after watching its top two quarterbacks go down last week at the hands of Alabama, is that no one was seriously hurt.

Again, though, that much we could have guessed. It wasn't a day for further confirmation of LSU's ongoing dominance on defense. It was for contemplating a terrifying new

Nebraska 34, Ohio State 27.
Ohio State fans are not blind. They witnessed the Buckeye offense crawl into a hole and die at Miami. They watched its carcass dragged around Ohio Stadium last week by Michigan State. They saw the 10½-point line for this game in Nebraska's favor. They had to endure a whole new round of suspensions this week for players they'd expected back, but who may not play again this season and may not make any difference if they do. Honestly, they recognized that this is not a good team.

They were braced for disappointment, wary of false optimism, resigned to rebuilding. And still, their team found a way to knock their wind out with a swift punch to the gut.

The only way that was possible was for the Buckeyes to demonstrate some signs of life early on, and against all odds, the offense looked not only sentient but kind of great. The opening drive of the night was a 56-yard march that ate up a little more than half the first quarter en route to a field goal. The second

Georgia 20, Tennessee 12.
The psychic journey of Georgia fans over the last three years — a straight, downward-sloping line from No. 1 in the nation to start of 2008 to a losing record at the end of 2010 — has been too harrowing to allow them a sense of actual relief over one game, or even over four. But given where the Bulldogs were a month ago, on the heels of an 0-2 start at the hands of Boise State and South Carolina, it's impossible to ignore where they are tonight defensively.

As a team, Tennessee rolled up nine yards on the ground, with a long of eleven. SEC leader in passing yards, touchdowns, completion percentage and efficiency had completed barely half his passes (18 of 34) with no touchdowns and a passer rating of 115, his worst as a starter. When the Vols moved the ball in the first half, they were forced to settle for three field goal attempts that netted six points. On their first four possessions of the second half, they amassed five yards, four punts and a single

Somehow, college football made it through the entire month of September without a peep from the NCAA's finger-wagging new unsportsmanlike conduct rule. And when it finally did rear its head today, where did its disapproving gaze land? On LSU's punter, of course:

Thus does Brad Wing, a redshirt freshman originally from Melbourne, Australia, become the first player in a nationally televised game to have a touchdown stripped from the books for an in-play personal foul, thanks to the brief "What do you think of this?" gesture he flashes trailing Florida defenders around the 10-yard line. Instead of the six, LSU took over with set of downs at the Florida 23 and eventually had to settle for a Drew Alleman field goal that extended the LSU lead to 17-0 at the start of the second quarter. America's children are safe.

If you're splitting hairs, Wing is the second player victimized by the rule, following USC's Torin Harris, who had a touchdown against Utah temporarily expunged after the Trojan

Lewis_shark

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the football field, beware the Oklahoma Sharks.

No it's not some fake movie football team, it's what the Oklahoma defense is calling itself this season. And it's predator-like ways were evident during Saturday's 55-17 shellacking of Texas in the annual Red River Rivalry at the Cotton Bowl.

The Sooners defense accounted for three touchdowns -- an interception, a sack-fumble and a strip by defensive back Jamell Fleming, who commemorated the score by turning his hand into a dorsal fin at the top of his helmet.

Fleming_shark"big s/o to my sharks today! It aint safe in this deep crimson sea," Fleming tweeted after the game.

It was the first time in Oklahoma history that the Sooners, err, Sharks had three defensive scores in one game. It was also only the second time the team had defensive touchdowns on fumbles. Oklahoma also harassed Texas' young quarterbacks, Case McCoy and David Ash, with eight sacks.

Linebacker Travis Lewis, who took the Golden Hat

Wake Forest 35, Florida State 30.
Last week, surveying Florida State's 2-2 start in light of its… let's say, inconsistent track record over the last five years, I said we won't be able to make a call on the Seminoles until well into November, at the earliest. Today, I stand corrected: We know exactly where FSU is headed, and it's straight to the bottom of the ACC standings.

Losing to Oklahoma and Clemson by a combined 15 points is one thing. Committing five turnovers en route to your fourth loss to Wake Forest in six years? That's a Florida State thing. Coming into this season, the Seminoles had been bounced from the polls following an early loss in four consecutive Septembers from 2007-10. Today's loss in Winston-Salem only missed extending the streak to five years by a bye week on FSU's schedule. It was the 'Noles' seventh straight loss as a ranked team against an unranked road underdog dating back to 2005. Read that sentence again.

So: No, despite the highest expectations in nearly

When teams leave a conference, they usually complain about fans yelling obscenities to them during games or referee biases. Rarely do those teams complain about an opposing team's fans leaving poop in their team bus.

Byrne_TweetBut Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne is accusing Texas Tech fans of just that. According to a Byrne tweet, someone left excrement in the Aggies' team buses and smeared it on the outside. The buses also reportedly had vulgarities spray painted across them.

If that doesn't scream bitterness, I'm not sure what does.

Aggie_signOf course, there was no police report filed and no one knows exactly who did it, but defacing a team bus with poop — and let's hope it's animal poop — is just all sorts of wrong.

Chances are it is horse manure because of the statue of Will Rogers on his horse on the Texas Tech campus, which is positioned so that the rear end of the horse faces Texas A&M. It's a revered statue and this prank would surely be homage to it.

Still defacing A&M's buses in such a